Google on Tuesday announced Android Wear, “a project that extends Android to wearables” like smartwatches.

The announcement is aimed at attracting developers, who can create apps for the new family of Android devices, before smartwatches and similar devices powered by Android Wear start appearing in the market.
“We’re always seeking new ways for technology to help people live their lives and this is just another step in that journey,” Sundar Pichai, who heads Android and Chrome divisions in Google, wrote on the company’s official blog.

According to Google, the smartwatches powered by Android Wear will show information “when you need it”, provide answers to spoken queries, monitor physical activity and allow access to other devices like a smartphone.

Goggle said that it was already working with several consumer electronics manufacturers, including Asus, HTC, LG, Motorola and Samsung; chip makers Broadcom, Imagination, Intel, Mediatek and Qualcomm; and fashion brands like the Fossil Group to bring consumers watches powered by Android Wear later this year.

Could Google Glass put an end to the laborious task of writing sales call reports? Perhaps — and that’s not all. Glass might one day recognize that familiar face you run into at a conference and jog your memory with the subject’s full profile. Glass could call up a household’s service history during a field call, or let a trainer virtually tag along on a sales call to dispense real-time advice.

Google last week debuted several trendy eyeglass frames for Glass, enabling the device to shed its dorky look while accommodating prescription lenses.

The more natural look means consumers likely will be more accepting of Glass once it becomes generally available — assuming it also sports a price point more in line with most people’s budgets.

The new Glass frames and support for nearsighted and farsighted people — who make up roughly half of the U.S. population — are also a boon for a smaller constituency, but one that is more likely to buy the first wave of devices and apps when they hit the market: businesses that decide to use Glass in their customer service and field service operations.

This embrace of Glass for business — and customers’ acceptance of a service rep wearing Google Glass — will be far easier now that the device can be worn with less of a sci-fi effect.

CRM, productivity and field service hold huge potential for Google Glass, and apps with these use cases in mind are likely to materialize sooner rather than later.

On the Trade Show Floor

For instance, one expected CRM-type use for Google Glass — both with and without facial recognition — will be on trade show floors or at conferences. There are Glass apps under development that can line up profiles for people who have scheduled meetings throughout the day or who are attending a meet-and-greet. When facial recognition is part of the mix — and despite Congress’ concerns, I believe it inevitably will be — the use cases in this scenario multiply.

The new frames also will be more acceptable to reps making sales calls while sporting Glass. Here, Salesforce.com may play a significant role, as Adam Honig indicated last year.

An integration between Glass and Salesforce.com could go well beyond pulling up contact profiles. A special feature could automatically log reports in Salesforce — a task most sales people loathe, he speculated.

Such an integration holds real promise for sales coaching, according to Honig. An app could allow coaches to directly observe and record the calls their sales teams make.

“No more flying to Indianapolis for that sales call just to watch Joe Salesman pitch a client,” he wrote. “Now sales managers can provide feedback both after the call has ended or in real time!”

Field Service Reps and Google Glass

Another intriguing use case — which, again, seems far more likely to materialize with the new frames — is in the field. A generation ago, field service reps were the first to adopt mobile CRM in smartphones and tablets — and before then in specialized devices.

App developers are looking to replicate that trend in situations where Google Glass is easier to use. Sullivan Solar Power, for example, early this year announced that it had developed a Google Glass app that gives field technicians “volumes” of electrical system data.

“Having two free hands is critical in a rooftop environment,” said Michael Chagala, director of information technology for Sullivan Solar Power, when announcing the app.

Sullivan Solar sees Google Glass assisting with training — and being put to more ambitious uses too. Collaboration in the industry via live-streaming video conferencing functionality is one of its goals for Google Glass. This means a team of experts can be with the technician at the job site virtually in order to diagnose a problem.

According to The Engineer and other sites, Sony has filed a patent application for a smart wig. The patent application is reported to indicate that the device will contain sensors, communications functionality and “an actuator for tactile feedback.” The wig could be used as a navigation tool, a potential boon to the sight-impaired. The device will accomplish this by sending out ultrasound signals to detect objects and subsequently alert the wearer via vibrations or small electric shocks. Other functionality, including video cameras and body monitors, also will be housed in the wig.

Throat Tattoos:

Sony may be planning its wig, but Google has a trick up its sleeve that is even harder to swallow: According to GMA News, its Motorola Mobility business unit has applied for a patent that links skin tattoos to mobile devices. The abstract at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office says that the tattoo would be in the “the throat region of a body.” Possible functionality includes a microphone, a transceiver for wireless communications and an energy supply.

Google Glass:

Google seems to be releasing small updates to Google Glass on an ongoing basis, despite the fact that the device has not been released to the general public. For instance, in November, the Bristol Post reported that Google Glass introduced an ear bud “instead of the strange bone-induction sound system that came on the first devices and was generally poorly received.” This month, according to Android Community, Google has incorporated Google Play Music.

UP 3.0:

Jawbone’s UP24 wristband is aimed at helping users understand their eating, moving and sleeping habits. Last month, Jawbone announced upgrades to the device. The UP 3.0 app now offers the “Today I Will” feature. According to the company, Today I Will, which is available from the UP 3.0 App Insights Engine, does such things as remind users to drink a suggested number of glasses of water or to go to bed at a certain time. It offers commemoration of both long- and short-term achievements.

The Nissan Motor Company may seem like an unlikely maker of wearable computing devices, but at the Tokyo Motor Show last month, the company displayed the Nissan 3E. The single-eye, monocle-style device shoots video and adds augmented reality information. It was made available to reporters at the show. The idea, according to a video accompanying a press release, is to expand the ways in which people shop for automobiles by providing the additional information and extending the shopper’s experience to people in remote locations.

Skully P1:

Skully Helmets’ Skully P1 is a motorcycle helmet with a camera on the back to provide riders with a 180-degree view. The ability to see what is behind them can reduce accidents. The helmets feature the Heads-Up Display (HUD), which the company says provides “an advanced situational awareness system” showing navigation and illuminating blind spots. The helmets offer GPS mapping and Bluetooth smartphone integration.

Vuzix M100:

Android-based Vuzix M100 smart glasses are monocular augmented reality devices featuring a display, video recording capabilities and wireless connectivity. Pre-installed apps can record and playback high-definition images and video. The device features Bluetooth 4.0, which enables pairing with other Bluetooth devices. Situational awareness is created by a combination of GPS and integrated head-tracking capabilities.

The emergence of Google Glass, a prototype for a transparent Heads-Up Display (HUD) worn over one eye, is significant. It is the first conceptualization of a mainstream augmented reality wearable eye display by a large company. This paper argues that Glass’s birth is not only a marketing phenomenon heralding a technical prototype, it also argues and speculates that Glass’s popularization is an instigator for the adoption of a new paradigm in human-computer interaction, the wearable eye display. Google Glass is deliberately framed in media as the brainchild of Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Glass’s process of adoption operates in the context of mainstream and popular culture discourses, such as the Batman myth, a phenomenon that warrants attention.

Project Glass is a research and development program by Google to develop an augmented reality Head-Mounted Display (HMD). The intended purpose of Project Glass products would be the hands-free displaying of information currently available to most smart-phone users, and allowing for interaction with the Internet via natural language voice commands. These glasses will have the combined features of virtual reality and augmented reality. Google glasses are basically wearable computers that will use the same Android software that powers Android smart-phones and tablets. Google Glass is as futuristic a gadget we’ve seen in recent times. A useful technology for all kinds of people including handicapped/disabled.

Background

Google Glass is a prototype for an augmented reality, heads-up display developed by Google X lab slated to run on the Android operating system (see Figure 1). Augmented reality involves technology that augments the real world with a virtual component. The first appearance of Glass was on Sergey Brin who wore it to an April 5, 2012 public event in San Francisco. Provocative headlines emerged such as “Google ‘Project Glass’ Replaces the Smartphone with Glasses” and “Google X Labs: First Project Glass, next space elevators?” . A groundswell of anticipation surrounds Glass because it implies a revolutionary transition to a new platform, even though release for developers is only planned for 2013. At the time of our writing this paper, it is not available for consumers who can only see it in promotional materials.

Heads-up eye displays are not new. The Land Warrior system, developed by the U.S. army over the past decade, for example, includes a heads-up eye display with an augmented reality visual overlay for soldier communication. Many well-known inventors have contributed eye display technology, research or applications over the past two decades including Steve Mann (Visual Memory Prosthetic), Thad Starner (Remembrance Agent), and Rob Spence (Eyeborg). Commercially, Vuzix is a company that currently manufactures transparent eye displays.

Science fiction and popular references to the eye display are almost too numerous to list, but most are featured in military uses: Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator from the 1984 film had an integrated head’s up display that identified possible targets, Tom Cruise’s Maverick in Top Gun had a rudimentary display to indicate an enemy plane’s target acquisition and current G-forces, and Bungie’s landmark video game series Halo features a head’s up display that gives the player real-time status updates on player enemy locations, shield levels, remaining ammunition and waypoint information. In most popular culture uses, a head’s up display is transparently overlaid upon the real world. However, in video games, the display is considered to be part of the entire game interface. While many film and television shows are adding HUDs to their storytelling to add a science fiction or futuristic feel, there is a movement in game development away from any artificial HUDs as many consider them to be “screen clutter” and block a player’s view of a created world. The video game Dead Space by Electronic Arts is an exemplar of this new style: traditional game information such as health and ammunition have been woven into character design, allowing for an unobstructed view.

How it Works?

The device will probably communicate with mobile phones through Wi-Fi and display contents on the video screen as well as respond to the voice commands of the user. Google put together a short video demonstrating the features and apps of Google glasses. It mainly concentrates on the social networking, navigation and communication. The video camera senses the environment and recognizes the objects and people around. The whole working of the Google glasses depends upon the user voice commands itself.

Sergey Brin has been loosely associated with Batman since the fall of 2011, setting persuasive discursive grounds for actions that Google takes. A compelling character in the narrative that charts this technology’s emergence, the name “Sergey Brin” appears 713 times in the corpus of 1,000 print and online news articles about Google Glass. Often the story concentrates on Brin’s activities, comments, whereabouts, and future expectations amid news of a technology that only exists as an artifact of the press for the public. Rupert Till explains the definition of how an individual must amass popular fame in order to form a “cult of personality”: A celebrity is someone who is well known for being famous, and whose name alone is recognizable, associated with their image, and is capable of generating money. . . For a star to progress to a point where they are described as a popular icon requires their achievement of a level of fame at which they are treated with the sort of respect traditionally reserved for religious figures. In order to be described as a popular icon, a star has to become a religious figure, to develop their own personality cult and recruit followers.

Benefits:

Easy to wear and use.

Sensitive and responsive to the presence of people.

Fast access of maps, documents, videos, chats and much more.

A new trend for fashion lovers together being an innovative technology.

A spectacle based computer to reside directly on your eyes rather than in your pouch or pocket.